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Family Sheet

HUSBAND
Name: General John Blassingame Note Born: 19 May 1769 Married: 23 Mar 1794 at Anderson County, , , SC Died: 12 Nov 1823 at Greenville Co., , , SC Father: John Blassingame Mother: Rachel Westfield
WIFE
Name: Elizabeth Easley Born: 21 Mar 1774 at Virginia, , , Died: 26 Apr 1834 Father: Robert Easley Mother: Catherine Benson
CHILDREN
Name: Mary Blassingame Born: at SC, , , Died: 4 Jan 1884 at SC, , , Husband: Jess Cleveland
Name: Ester Blassingame Born: 15 Jan 1795 at Spartanburg, , , SC Died: 1869 Husband: Col Enoch Berry Benson
Name: Mary (polly) Blassingame Born: 24 Apr 1797 Died: 4 Jan 1884 Husband: Joseph Cleveland
Name: William Easley Blassingame Born: 28 May 1798 at SC, , , Died: 7 Sep 1841 at Perry, , , AL Wife: Eliza Paul Townes
Name: Samuel Easley Blassingame Born: 20 May 1799 at Anderson Co., , , SC Died: Bef 1811 at Anderson Co., , , SC Wife: Malinda Ann Holder
Name: Eliza Blassingame Born: 15 Jan 1800 Died: 24 Jan 1886 at Anderson Co., , , SC Husband: Dr. John Robinson
Name: Caroline Blassingame Born: 1800 at SC, , , Died: 1850 Husband: William E. Wickliffe
Name: Nancy Easley Blassingame Born: 15 Jan 1805 at SC, , , Died: 3 Dec 1872 at Anderson Co., , , SC Husband: Thomas Major Sloan
NOTES
1). Was Revolutionary Soldier. Source http homepages.rootsweb.com scroots sc01376.htm General John Blassingame of Greenville County, a planter, served in the South Caroline Militia during the War of 1812 and never lived in Union County, South Carolina. as some sources site He married Elizbeth Easley, daughter of Robert Easley, whose will was recorded in Anderson County, South Carolina. Anderson County probate roll 196, original at South Carolin Archives From the Easley estates papers a signature of then Major John Blassingame was obtained. His signature does not end with a Jr.Major John s signature does not match the signature of John Jr. who witnessed the will of John dl. 1809. These two, different, recorded signatures were filed only two years apart. General John died intestate in 1823 in Greenville County, South Carolina. His grave has been marked by the Daughters of the American Revolution BRANDON S REG., SC TROOPS, REVOLUTIONARY WAR, AMERICAN REVOLUTIONARY BOY SOLDIER GENERAL IN S C MILITIA B. 1769 D. 11 12 1823 The Presence of the Past Epitaphs of 18th and 19th Century Pioneers in Greenville County, South Carolina and their Descendants, compiled by Mrs. Beverly T. Whitmire and others. Gateway Press. 1976 A signature comparison proves that he was not the John Blassingame Jr. who was in Brandon s Regiment.We have not found any proof that General John served in the Revolutionary War. Who were the parents of General John Blassingame of Greenville County, Thomas of Pickens County, or James of Greenville County? During our research we discovered various Johns, Thomas, Williams and Phillip Blassingames. From the many documents that were studied we were able to determine which of them died in South Carolina and which removed from the state. By doing this we believe that we have proved that the only place General John and his brother Thomas could fit into the Blassingame Family line is as children of William of Cheraw District who died ca. 1782. Source The South Carolina Magazine of Ancestral Research, Vol. XXVI, No. 2, Spring 1998, p. 72 76A conflicting report on the fatherhood of John Blassingame is as follows According to Addie Evans Wynn, author of Souther Lineages, Lloyd has samecrest as Blassingame and Jouet . this notation was located by the writer in her notes in the Evans Memorial Library in Aberdeen, Mississippi, and she further comments that this reference was found in the Newberry Library in Chicago. Three times the writer has been to the Newberry Library seeking this reference, but its location remains a mystery. It is possible that the missing reference is located in The Cleveland Genealogy , printed in 1899 by the Case, Lockwood and Brainard Company, Hartford, Connecticut, according to Mrs. Jerry Cleveland Whitmrie, formerly of Charleston, South Carolina, but its definite location there could not be pin pointed by the writer. The reference is said to read as follows The crest of the Blassingames, a pelican inher piety French Huguenots, same as Jouett of the Island of Rhe, France. Left France for religious motives in the autumn of 1686 for Plymouth, England. Descended from the noble family of Jouett of the Province of Anjou Feudal Lords of the Seitneuriesof La Souleage and Piedonault. Jouetts and de Graffiereids Huguenots left the Isle of Rhe on the west coast of France, opposite La Rochelle and north of Bordeaux, went to Plymouht, England, then to Leiden, Holland, then to Narragansett, Rhode Island,then to Virginia, and then to South Carolina. The name was first spelled Blessingham and Blassingham . This is not a Huguenot name and the conclusion is that they were Huguenot refugees and must have abjured their French name, as did others, for protection against persecution. Patriot John Blassingame married first Obedience Westfield and second Rachel Westfield. His son, General John Blassingame married Elizabeth Easley. I has not been possible to reconcile the date 1686 in the reference with the fact that John Blassinghame was in Petsworth Parish, Gloucester County, Virginia, in 1677. It is a well known fact that some Huguenots, fearing the rise of a papist King, gave up their French names and took Anglicized ones. The Noir family becamethe Black family. The Girardin family became the Sheridin family. The Jourdans became the Jordans .......................If, indeed, any of the Jouets of the Ile de Rd France abjured their name to become Blassingham , origin of such a changeis lost in history, but reason for such a change is apparent. In 1971, while in France, the writer visited the Ile de Re, formerly spelled Rhe, hoping to find some connection with the Blassingame family, but was unsuccessful........................Captain John Hayne Blassingame, visited the island many years ago according to Wynn, although she casts some doubt on the story. Mrs. Hattie C. Schroder of Greenville, South Carolina, in a letter to the writer stated emphatically that he did visit there andall the cousins in Spartanburg knew it to be a fact. Several alleged coats of arms of the Blassingame family have been broadcast by two and perhaps three firms in the United States, but in no case has the writer seen any authentic data produced to show that they were of ancient origin from Blassingame family records. They have apparently been made up by modern day heraldic artists, or taken from non authentic sources. FAMILY NO. 5 JOHN BLASSINGAME was born 19 May 1769 and was raised on the Pee Dee River in South Carolina. He is referred to as John, Junior, and once in Mrs. Wynn s notes for Southern Lineages he is called John Haroldswayne Blassingame another timehe is called John H. Blassingame. He is best known as General John Blassingame, brigadier of Militia in the War of 1812. His mother was Obedience Westfield. He was in the Revolutionary War as in the files of the Historical Commission of South Carolinathere is a record which shows John Blassingham sic was paid for 31 days duty as a private of foot in Captain Joseph Hughes Company, and for 21 days as a horseman in the same company, Brandon s Regiment, in 1782. The account was collected by John Blasingame for my son . Another account in the name of John Blassinghame, Junior, called for payment for 42 days duty between 22 June 1781 and 1 January 1782 as a horseman in Captain John Putnam s Company, Colonel Brandon s Regiment. Payment was also made to John Blasingame for my son . Many of the troops in Brandon s regiment resided in the vicinity of Union District. John Blasingame, Junior, was granted a plantation or tract of land containing Three hundred acres situate on the Waters of Fair Forestand branch called Salley s Creek, bounding on the Widow Littlefield s land, and on all other sides on vacant land on 21 January 1785. In the files of Mrs. William B. Harrison of Fort Worth, presently owned by her daughter, Mrs. W. B. Paddock, is a letter to Mrs. Harrison from Willie Wyatt, Montgomery, Alabama, which states that John Blassingame in 1787 came to the upper part of South Carolina from Marion, South Carolina, or as she calls it, the Piedmont. In this letter he is referred to as John H. Blassingame. She gives no source for her information. On 23 March 1794 he married Elizabeth Easley, born 21 March 1774 in Virginia, died 26 April 1834. She was the daughter of Robert Robin Easley and Elizabeth Coleman, the former a Revolutionary soldier, in whose will the Blassingames are prominently mentioned as recorded in Pendleton District, South Carolina, in 1806. Reynolds and Faunt in Biographical Directory of the Senate of the State of South Carolina, 1776 1964 state that he was Senator fromUnion District, 1800 1804. He was a planter at Tanglewood plantation, Union District near Greenville, South Carolina. He was in the South Carolina Militia, a Major, and later a Brigadier General of the 4th Brigade, 1815. This same reference states he was a justice of the peace and a county court judge. It is evidently in error when it states he was sheriff of Union District, commissioned in 1787, and tax collector 1784088, as he would have been only 15 to 18 years of age at the time. Probably thisrefers to his father. From Mrs. Wynn s notes in the Evans Memorial Library we learn that he kept a tavern and Theodosia Burr Alston, wife of Governor Joseph Alston, the wife of Governor Joseph Alston, the seventeenth governor of South Carolina, 1812 1814, spent one summer at his place. She was a daughter of Aaron Burr and was lost at sea aboard a ship bound from Charleston to New York. Also in Mrs. Wynn s notes in an anecdote related by Mr. Andrew Hamilton of Easley, South Carolina In South Carolina...militia companies held encampments at certain muster grounds. There was one near Easley at old Pickensville. At one of the encampments General John Blassingame was entertaining some prominent official, and his brother got drunk and laid down on theside of the road. His name was Thomas Blassingame. General Blassingame and his friend passed and he asked the General who the man was and he pretended he did not know. Poor Thomas overheard him and raised hiself up and exclaimed Why, don t you know your own brother Tommie? John Blassingame was a large slave holder as indicated in the 1810 census of Greenville County, South Carolina, when he had thirty four listed. In this census he had two sons and five daughters in addition to his wife. In 1815General John Blassingame bought a slave named Jacob for $550 from Edward P. Bacon of Charlotte County, Virginia. This is recorded in Hunnicutt s The Sale of a Slave . He died in Greenville District, South Carolina, on 30 November 1823, the event beingrecorded in The Charleston Courier for 2 January 1824, his age being give as 54. He is buried in Greenville, South Carolina, his gravestone inscribed as follows John Blasingahm, Jr. Pvt. Brandon s Regt. S.C. Troops Rev. War 1823 American Rev. Boy Soldier Gen. S.C. Militia 1769 1823 Married Elizabeth Easley 1818. An oil portrait of General John Blassingame hangs in the dining room of the home of Mrs. W.B. Paddock in Fort Worth, Texas. It measures approximately 24 by 28 inches and is in an excellent state of preservation. According to Mrs. Paddock, she had it appraised by someone from the Metropolitan Museum who declared it may have been painted by either Peale or Stuart, both famous American artists. The painting is unsigned, but from the skin tones and technique of the artist this appraisal was made. This opinion was concurred in, according to Mrs. Paddock, by the curator of the Fort Worth Art Museum. During the Civil War the painting was in Gonzales, Texas, in Mrs. Paddock s grandmothers home Mrs. William Easley Blassingame, nee Eliza Paul Townes and was used as a fire screen in front of their fireplace! The painting had a hole in the tip of the nose, but was restored in Colorado Springs by an artist there. Mrs. Caro C. Powell, neeCleveland, of Spartanburg, South Carolina, a descendant of General John Blassingame, is of the opinion that the painting may have been done by John Wesley Jarvis 1780 1840 . she bases her opinion on the fact that an oil portrait of Joel Roberts Poinsett, next door neighbour of the General, now hanging in the Council Chamber of the Charleston, South Carolina, City Hall, is attributed to this man, according to an article in the magazine, Antiques , for November 1970. Poinsett who lived 1779 1851, was a planter, diplomat, scientist and United States minister to Mexico from 1825 to 1830, and is best remembered as the man who introduced into this country from Mexico the poinsettia. Although the painting of the General is unsigned, it was not uncommon in the early days of the Republic for traveling artists to do portraits of people in payment for their board and lodging, but not sign them. His estate papers contain a copy of the printed advertisement of his estate sale and is signed by William Easley Blassingame and E.B. Benson, dated 12 January 1824. It notes that he lived three miles from the Court House. Data on children of General John Blassingame from Wynn, from files of Mrs. W.B. Paddock, Fort Worth, Texas, latter data being copied from Bible of Esther Blassingame Benson also from data on Easley family by Mrs. Thomas S. Cameron, San Diego, California, and Carpenter Wier Family of Upper South Carolina by Henry Bacon McKoy. Election was held in Pickensville on January 5, 1811 for a Colonel to command the Regiment of Cavalry. Major John Blassingame was elected.Source Miller s Weekly Messenger , Pendleton,SC. Abstracted by G. Anne Sheriff and published in Old Pendleton District Newsletter, Vol. 16, no. 6, June, 2002.John Blassingame Rev. Hero Source www.scgenealogy.com pickens history keowee records history. htm According to this web site the following information exists Actual obituary believed to be in the Greenville Mountaineer newspaper the first or second issue in December. Also his wife Elizabeth who died 26 April 1834 supposedly has her eulogy published in the Greenville Mountaineer. Source http archiver.rootsweb.com th read SCGREENV 2000 09 0968869831 Among the sturdy patriots mentioned by Prof. Lyman G. Draper in his Kings Mountain and Its Heroes who assisted in establishing American Independence were my ancestors the Blassingames. On Sugar Creek, Union District SC, lived a number of determined Whigs named Blassingames, one of whom was arrested. Tradition has it that John Blassingame, my ancestor, was thrice hanged, to induce him to turn traitor, and left as dead, but was cut down and revived by his wife. When the British officer in charge heard of it he said, That man is Blassin game! Captain Anthony Allen s diary state that the American Army took up ground on the Blassingame s plantation and camped there for some days. pp. 76 505 Source Application of Harry C. Hagood II to the Sons of the American Revolution , June 1, 1998Other information in addition to that above was extracted from the application for same of Benjamin Adger Hagood 1924 After the arrest of John Blassingame, the army took up ground on John Blassingame s plantation, & remained there for some days. Records on file in office of South Carolina Historical Commission, Columbia, S.C. show that John Blassingame served 42 days in 1781 as horseman in Capt. John Putnam s W. ? Brandon s Regiment. Also 31 days in 1781 in Capt. Joseph Hughes Co. Col. Thomas Brandon s Regiment S.C. Militia.

						

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